MCN Blogs
David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Friday, August 28th, 2009 - 6 Comments »
Be Sociable, Share!

Box Office Hell – August 28, 2009

bohell082809.png

Be Sociable, Share!

6 Comments »

6 Responses to “Box Office Hell – August 28, 2009”

  1. Stella's Boy says:
    August 28, 2009 at 2:16 pm

    So if Taking Woodstock can sneak into the number five spot, the top five will all be R-rated.

  2. LexG says:
    August 28, 2009 at 7:03 pm

    HALLOWEEN II, *57 MILLION*. Take that to the BANK.
    FINAL DESTINATION, 38 MILLION.
    This weekend is going to be HUGE.

  3. torpid bunny says:
    August 28, 2009 at 8:35 pm

    n00b question: are these estimates based on projections from Friday (east-coast?) numbers, or are they not based on real numbers yet? I’ve poked around at some of those sites and can’t find any explanation.
    Is there a place I can look for more background on these projections (possibly from David himself)? Like, has anyone done a nate silver-type analysis of who gives the best estimates? Do studios do analyses throughout development and marketing of the estimated box-office for a given concept or movie? I know its a big topic but I’m having trouble finding a place to start. Sorry for the n00biness.

  4. David Poland says:
    August 28, 2009 at 10:43 pm

    No one gives the best estimates. They are guesses based on instinct, history, and tracking ether. The people we show have a history doing it and generally reflect the “current thinking” each week. But it’s a fool’s errand… one I used to do every week. My estimates were often “more right” than others… but they were equally often as wrong or wronger.
    Tracking, which is the holy grail for the guessers, is not made to estimate the opening gross, but to guide marketers about how well they are reaching people. Actually going to the movies is not easily measured by survey.
    Areas that are often wrong are children’s films, horror films, and heavily female films.
    The numbers we run in BO Hell are set pre-Friday matinee… though estimates made based on Friday afternoon PST numbers are often as wrong as anyone else’s guess. But people are interested in that “status quo.”
    I often think the “SURPISE” headlines on Sunday are bullshit, but we do participate in this way, as the info is out there and our readers are interested. Thus, the title of the feature.
    And welcome to the site.

  5. jeffmcm says:
    August 29, 2009 at 2:23 am

    Actually, I bet if Nate Silver wanted to, he could figure out ‘who gives the best estimates’ since that’s something that would be objectively determinable. It would change over time, but it’s not something that is permanently unknowable.

  6. Stella's Boy says:
    August 29, 2009 at 3:59 am

    Not even close, if the estimates are correct. About $26 million for FD and $17 million for H2. Sorry Lex.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon